


scattered ashes (from flames smothered too soon)

by LeonisRest



Series: Take a sledgehammer to canon and fix-it [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Death, Codependency, Gen, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-04 23:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14031288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeonisRest/pseuds/LeonisRest
Summary: There was a flame in them once, bright and clear.There was, there isn't.Now, all that's left is to rebuild, over the ashes.





	1. from sunrise to sunset

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hannahmayski](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hannahmayski/gifts).



> Used to be an answer to a prompt, is spiralling into its own fucking fic. Goddamit. I blame Echo.

Kiba was scouring through the bins when he heard the shouts above head. He craned his neck and tried to see what had riled up the locals so much, squinting against the sun.  
The smell of old sweat rising from his jersey made him jerk his head, just at the same time someone fell on him

“OI! Look where ya going asshole!”

They felt like some kind of weird lump, all bird-like bones brittles and dry muscles, and probably dead since Kiba couldn’t even hear a faint respiration.  
He moved around and tried to put the dead down, swearing all the while, and glaring at Akamaru when the dog decided to lay down instead of helping him.

He finally managed to turn the dead weight on its face to see if Kiba couldn’t recognize him. Which… he certainly seemed familiar, but honestly he couldn’t place the face. However, even with the grim and blood staining the pale skin, he could tell that the kid was…

“Well at least I know how _ya_ attracted the snatch band. Fucking pretty face ya’ve got, would fetch a good price on the market… motHERFUCK-”

Kiba avoided barely the hand stretching towards him and vaulted behind Akamaru, getting his dagger out.

“Call me. Pretty. One more time and I’m going to eat your _face_ Inuzuka.”

Kiba cocked his head to the side, and gave a toothy smile at the other kid, managing to place him finally.

“Well if ya still as bad at fighting as ya were back then, I’ve got _nothing_ to fear Sauce-uke.”

Sasuke made an attempt to grab at Kiba, at his expression to try and strangle him, but he fell short of the movement with a groan.  
Kiba got out of the fighting stance, sheathing the dagger back before cocking his head to the side.

“Well. D’ya want help princess or nah?”

The glare was more than worth the hassle of holsting up Sasuke over his shoulder.

“Nah just kidding, my ma would’ve my hide if I let a pretty girl outside with snatches- OW! Fucker”, he said when Sasuke managed to nail his sternum with his elbow.

“…your mom?”

“Nah, she and Han- well. You know how it went. It’s just me and Akamaru now. And you I suppose.”

Sasuke nodded woodenly in his shoulder.

“Naruto… he’s dead you know?”

“Considering he hasn’t yet come in yelling because I kidnapped ya, yeah I figured. Fuck this shit-show, but at least I guess both of us are alive. Gotta count for something.”

He whistled low and Akamaru started leading the way, to their current safe-house.

“……I guess.”

“I mean, it doesn’t get much worse than getting a few bombs dropped over us, and then everyone going crazy.”

“Inuzuka, I swear if you _managed to actually curse us-_ ”

“Hey asshole, did _I fucking ask you for an opi-_ OW leave the hair alone! Goddammit!”

“You. Fucking shut up. At least your dog have better manners than you, _beast-boy_.”

“I’ll have you know that my ma brought me up right- OW STOP WITH THE HAIR ALREADY!”

“No.”

* * *

They made it to the hole in the ground Kiba called his base, and what Sasuke called a “really, how are you even alive”.  
Kiba resented that remark, and punched Sasuke in the face, who retaliated by biting Kiba’s arm.

 _Asshole_.

But… it was nice to see a face from the past, even if it was that too-pretty-for-real Uchiha pain in the ass.  
He _should_ probably feel more than the vague “Eh, I guess” about Naruto dying. He _should_ but then again, in the past year living alone, he had exhausted all the pain he could feel about someone’s death.

The last time he cried was over Iruka-sensei’s corpse, that he found while foraging in the old school’s district.  
The body was fully mummified, in some kind of weird shield over ten little corpses that had decomposed too much for Kiba to tell who it was.  
He was weirdly glad for it, too.

_I had to look at little Inari’s glassy eyes when I found her in the basement. I have enough nightmare - better not knowing than revisiting it every night, thanks._

He doesn’t ask what happens to Naruto. Nor what happened to anyone they could both have known.  
What did it matter, anyway, for they were probably dead and the only sure thing was that Kiba and Sasuke and Akamaru were alive.

They were alive, kicking and raging and screaming, and they weren’t gonna lay down anytime soon.

 _Not on his watch_ , he thinks grimly, baring his teeth at the sunset.

It’s a dull satisfaction to be three again. Not yet a pack, _maybe never again_ , but more than him and Akamaru. More to live than just the two of them.


	2. dark (k)night (swallow me whole)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TIS SASUKE POV.  
> none of them are okay.
> 
> Also, liberal amount of NaruSasu, character death, please take care of yourself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: character death, narrator very unstable, NaruSasu.

Some days, Sasuke would wake up and lie in bed for hours. It wasn’t a recent development, though. For years, ever since Itachi _had killed their parents and disappeared in the night_ , he had done that.

Laying down. Thinking about what he could have done differently - _did you hate me so much nii-san that you’d leave me?_ Or just staring into the void, mind blank and letting darkness swallow him.

The doctors called it “depression”, “dissociation” and Sasuke just wanted to snort and snarl and scream at them. Like it was a mental illness. Like he was _anything_ but alright.

And for years, it had _worked_ , pretending he was _fine_ , yes thank you ma’am, of course I’m grateful for you taking me in. And then. Well. The end of the world happened.

Okay, maybe he was being a bit dramatic. The end of the world hadn’t happened, _but it sure felt like it_. At first, it had been him alone, trying to keep up with an empty house, hiding when people went raiding the richer district, surviving on old noodles and cans.

_What happened to the old lady that was his last foster person? She never came back._

_Nobody ever came back for him._

But then. _Someone_ did. It had been pretty much a chance meeting, Sasuke going to the local chinese store and trying to find some food that had escaped the previous raiders and not hiding fast enough when Naruto came barrelling in.

Sasuke would lie if he said that the beaming smile he received from Naruto once they properly recognized each other didn’t feel as if the sun was bright in his face. ( _he didn’t mind. Couldn’t. How could he when he finally had someone coming back to him? When he finally had another person to stay at night and waking up and still finding them with him?_ )

It felt like night and day. Staying alone for so long hadn’t done any good to Sasuke - not that he would admit it _but still_ \- and Naruto’s hand in his felt so good and so _right_. _“It’s us against the world, believe me!”_ and Sasuke would smile, tiny smirk at Naruto.

“That’s what you think idiot.” _I love you_.

“I’ll make you see!” _I know, me too_.

* * *

It woke him in the middle of the night. The screams, that were _indubitably_ Naruto’s, and the cackling and he. It took him so long to remember what happened- _Come on, stupid, get this awesome brain of yours working_.

They had been ambushed, Sasuke still with his head in the cupboard, when he heard Naruto’s crescendo yelling. Hitting his head on the upper side of it, he swore between his teeth, feet already moving to Naruto, hands absently moving to the crowbar on his back.

_I swear if the idiot just found another spider I’m going to separate his useless head from his body._

But it wasn’t- it was. Blood everywhere and Naruto still screaming, and a sudden blinding hurt to the back of his head.

It was darkness swallowing him again, swallowing the day and Naruto-

_Naruto-_

Sasuke forces himself to open his eyes. But there was nothing to see. ( _mama why is it dark? Mama, mama why won’t you wake up?_ )

It felt like the rising of a wave, an anxiety burning bright in the back of his throat and against the darkness around him. He tried to breathe, but nothing entered his lungs. He tried to scream, and the sound was stuck.

_Naruto!_

Moving was hard. A hand, and the other, and Naruto _was still screaming and they were still cacklinganditfeltsohard-_

His hand found a knife. ( _one day little brother you’ll understand_ )

Suddenly, moving was not so much a chore as it was a _need_. Tearing all their throat apart, and it should have been harder than it was to do so while being _so utterly blind_ , but strangely enough it felt so natural. Too natural maybe.

And natural it was too, to arrive just as someone he loved breathed his last. He couldn’t even see Naruto’s last smile, his blue eyes closing one last time. He could only kiss lightly, his heart beating a staccato, and feel Naruto mouthing _love you_ ’s against him, could only feel the last flutter of his throat under his hands.

Could only pray and beg someone to bring Naruto back to him, his lips stained with gore and his voice breaking over and over, useless eyes spilling water over a corpse empty of its sun.

Sasuke didn’t count the hours spent there. Couldn’t, as he cried and screamed his voice hoarse over Naruto’s corpse, lying in the blood with him. The blood felt sticky to his fingers, then awfully dry, but Sasuke kept brushing Naruto’s hair - _“Gross deadlast, do you even clean it?” “I, have no lessons to receive from **you** asshole”_.

The scent of gore and dead things stewing was overwhelming, so Sasuke kept his nose near Naruto’s throat, stupidly willing to remember the scent that was _Naruto_ , so him, that stupid smile and that stupid bright hair- He broke into a sob again, dry heaving.

_No,nonono don’t go, don’t go where I can’t follow. I beg you. Come back._

“Don’t. Naruto. _Naruto please_.”

Just as his parents - _mama, mama please **wake up**_ \- stayed mute to his cries, so did Naruto.

 _In the end, everybody leaves me_.


End file.
